[wegs]

As a suggestion, point people to a personal web page or portfolio. Especially for a front-end engineer, I would never recruit someone based on a LinkedIn profile. That's doubly-true in this market.

To make it through the filter, it doesn't need to be fancy or take a lot of time, but it does need to be tasteful. Of course, fancy and playful go a very, very long ways for separating yourself from all the other people who made it through the filter.

[dmaskasky]

That's a great suggestion. Unfortunately, my portfolio is entirely comprised of Uber contributions that I cannot share publicly. I believe many folks are like me, eyes-forward and focused on the company mission. I was going through the process of open sourcing a library, but that's no longer going to happen.

I suppose I should get started on making something that I can own.

[anticsapp]

Are you allowed to talk around what you did there? Or even write "Top secret, I can't talk about it". I think you need some line items of some sort, because those are three great companies. You'll probably be out of work for 17 minutes.

[dmaskasky]

I developed tooling for real time data through graphql subscriptions and grpc streaming. I built a protobuf to graphql schema generator tool. I have extensive experience with React hooks and making Redux-less applications. I was on the Uber Elevate team and brought several applications from 0-1.

[anticsapp]

Yo that's crazy good, put those as line items on LinkedIn you will have to turn off notifications so many people will be bothering you.

[wegs]

You're unemployed now. It's not a bad use of your time. There are two levels here:

Level 1: There's a basic web site. Think of it as fizz buzz. I can see you have a basic sense of style -- web site aesthetics, code quality, etc. You don't need a lot, but what's there ought to be sane, sensible, and good.

Level 2: There are a few awesome things on it. Something clever, or something which shows some technical prowess.

It can't really hurt; if it's not fancy, I'll assume you didn't have time. If you have typos, blink/marquee tags, and syntax errors, I'll pass. But the more information you bring to the table, the better.

Right now, what people know about you is you passed a few reasonably rigorous interviews -- Tesla and Uber. Given you passed those, you'd likely pass more technical interview too (which is not the same as getting a job offer). Weaker companies might hire based on that. Stronger wants will want more signal. Anything you can do to generate that signal will help.

As a footnote, you included the line "I developed tooling for real time data through graphql subscriptions and grpc streaming. I built a protobuf to graphql schema generator tool. I have extensive experience with React hooks and making Redux-less applications. I was on the Uber Elevate team and brought several applications from 0-1." Put that in you linkedin.

There's a hierarchy I use when I look at resumes:

1) Weakest: Applicant worked somewhere. ("I was a software engineer for bagels.com")

2) Weak: Applicant worked on / with something. ("I worked on the customer database for bagels.com")

3) Average: Applicant accomplished something ("I increased the performance of the customer database of bagles.com by 25%, saving the company $50k/year in server costs and reducing latency")

4) Strong: Applicant accomplished something which justified their salary ("I rewrote the Fortran applicant database of bagles.com in node.js, moving it from a mainframe to AWS. This resulted in 25% higher customer conversion rates, and saved $500k / year.")

5. Strongest: Applicant accomplished something clever and technically impressive ("I built a pipeline which could render photorealistic bagle sandwiches for bagles.com prior to customer orders. This increased customer conversion rates 5x. I used [insert set of technically impressive techniques].")

The higher up you go that chain, the more likely you are to get the job you want.

[anticsapp]

I'd much rather have a LinkedIn or a GitHub, I can't stand personal portfolio sites with a lot of frippery and it's unclear what they actually have accomplished.

He needs to put line items into his LinkedIn, that's for sure. But he was probably dodging recruiterspam.

[wegs]

It's not an either-or. Hiring, you want as many independent data points as you can. An ideal candidate would have:

1) A strong resume / linkedin. Worked on projects which were successful. Worked for companies with rigorous recruiting processes. Didn't job hop randomly.

2) Good references from people I trust. In an ideal case, a personal referal.

3) A nice portfolio. I can see artifacts on github, on their web site, and through publications in academic journals.

4) A strong undergraduate school. Passed undergraduate recruiting.

5) A strong interview

6) A history of interest in what we do.

I don't think I've ever met an ideal candidate, but as an applicant, you want to give as many strong signals on all of those fronts as you can.

If all he had was an on-line portfolio, I probably wouldn't hire either.

[anticsapp]

Yes, that's true. Avoid an either/or situation. John Cage said that long ago.

[charwalker]

Those sites also force some order or format across all projects/profiles so it is easier to dig in and find specific things if needed.

[armageddon]

Plenty of other people will recruit him. The guy has worked as a front-end engineer at Uber and Tesla.

Just fill out the LinkedIn profile - bullet points under the Uber section. Link to GitHub if he has it, then post something on LinkedIn.

How many people have personal portfolio sites that are 2-3 years out of date... even 4-5 discussing how to build a product list in Backbone.js.

[wegs]

Perhaps you're right. But if you prepare well, better organizations will hire you for better jobs.

And to your comment, most portfolio sites are years out-of-date. I don't know anyone particularly cares. Most also aren't called 'portfolio sites' but 'personal web pages.'

If someone wrote a good backbone.js web site a half-decade ago, that gives me a pretty good indication of, well, a lot of things I care in hiring. I'm not making a check-list of technologies people know. Most experienced engineers can pick up new technologies in a month or two. I'm more looking for the sorts of things which are timeless:

* For a UI/UX designer, is there a sense of style? Did they think through what I want from their web site and how I get there? If that's a not the latest styles, that's okay. I respect the people who designed NextSTEP or Amiga too.

* For a front-end engineer, is the HTML correct? Accessible? Semantic? Is it split up properly between JS/CSS/HTML? All of this will be second-nature to someone I'd hire, but I see a lot of people are missing basics somewhere or other.

... and so on.

Basic skills gaps, (1) I haven't seen new hires close (2) are often indicative of deeper problems. That's why those stereotypical algorithmic interviews came around for back-end. People now optimize so much to the metric that it's become a lousy metric (and why I don't trust interviews much anymore), but the basic concept is right. Smart people who understand fundamentals, learning quickly, and execute well / get stuff done, preferably with good soft skills.

I'll also mention: I'm not sure anyone's getting hired overnight right now. We've gone from a seller's market to a buyer's market. A lot of layoffs, and not a lot of hiring going on right now. In previous downturns, which were much milder than this one, I saw very good people on job markets for months, and average people sometimes for years.

[cellar_door]

If you've worked at big companies on products with millions of users (like OP with Uber, Intuit, and Tesla), can't you just detail the specific team and components you developed?

[mountainboot]

Meh idk, seems like a waste of time. I have worked as a front end engineer at large companies my whole career and have never once been asked for a portfolio.